NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The No. 7 Yale Women's Ice Hockey Team celebrated Senior Day by beating St. Lawrence 3-1 in the last regular-season game at the Whale and clinching home ice for the ECAC Hockey Tournament.
Senior captain
Greta Skarzynski clinched the game with an empty-net goal, and classmate
Gianna Meloni stopped 21 of 22 shots to earn the win in net for the Elis, who are now in first place with a 3.5-point lead over second-place Harvard with one week remaining in the regular season.
Junior forwards
Claire Dalton and
Charlotte Welch got things started for the Bulldogs in the first period when they combined on a pretty scoring play at 13:48. Welch won the face outside the SLU blueline and the two traded passes until Dalton finished a one-timer in the slot for her 10
th of the year.
After the Saints tied the game early in the second, junior
Rebecca Vanstone sent a backhander from the high slot past the stick of Saints' goalie Lucy Morgan. Vanstone's 12th of the year gave the home team a 2-1 lead and was the eventual winner.
Yale, with school-records for overall wins, with 21, and conference victories (15), earned its first home post-season games since 2005, the only time the Elis have held playoff contests at Ingalls Rink. Those 2022 ECAC playoff games take place Feb. 25-27, a best-of-three series.
The Bulldogs, supported today by large crowd that included many members of the Yale Football Team, secured this opportunity by sweeping the North Country Teams this weekend and improving their win streak to six games while moving up to No. 5 in the Pairwise.
It was the perfect way to honor the Class of 2022, which also includes
Maya Kerfoot,
Rebecca Foggia and
Tess Dettling, each of whom are enjoying great seasons.
"This was such an exciting game and very fitting that it went down to the wire on senior day," said
Mark Bolding, Yale's Susan Cavanagh Head Coach. "We had great energy and again figured out how to finish out a tight game when it really mattered. I am very happy for our five awesome seniors as they keep setting team records and now clinch home ice for playoffs."